Who Wants a Nice Tall Glass of Coca-Cola’s Algorithmic Orange Juice?
Coca-Cola won’t say how it makes its best-selling Simply Orange orange juice, but one thing is for sure: It’s not so simple. A new investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek shows that the Coke-owned orange juice brand that’s billed as less processed version of Tropicana is in fact a hyper-engineered and dauntingly industrial product. The factory in Florida where the bulk of Coke’s orange juice products are made sounds less like a bucolic grove where natural things grow than an oil refinery where natural things go to die. And yes, that includes the “Grove Made” variety.
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Well, color us surprised. Despite considering ourselves fairly heady consumers, this caught us unawares. It is pretty tasty orange juice, for the record.
» The seized OJ contained a banned fungicide: The Food and Drug Administration has had to step up its orange juice-seizing lately, because a common fungicide called carbendazim, which, mind you, is safe in small amounts, is showing up in some of the imported orange juice. (Initially, this was reported to be a blanket ban, though the FDA says they’re only testing orange juice.) Here’s the kicker, though, from FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey: ”We don’t feel that this is a safety problem. This is more of a regulatory issue.” So basically, they’re seizing a crapload of OJ because it’s got a chemical that is apparently being poorly regulated. You would assume it’s dangerous to consumers, but it’s not. Wait … we’re not following this.
Because, let’s face it, the one thing that the world needed was Daft Punk’s motif all over a couple of Coke bottles, right? Awesome, yes, but we’re not even sure if Moby would’ve gone for a sellout opportunity this calculatedly commercial. Good work, French guys. source